Founded in 2012, the Commit Partnership is the nation’s largest “educational backbone” impact organization with more than 200 partners across Dallas County and the state of Texas working collaboratively to solve systemic education and workforce challenges. Together, we work to achieve a universal excellent and equitable public education that ensures all students – regardless of race, place, or socio-economic status – have the power to determine their future and earn a self-sustaining living wage.

Our staff aligns community stakeholders around a shared future roadmap – analyzing data to lift up strategic initiatives that improve policies, practices, and funding that grow our community’s capacity to serve every student more effectively in obtaining a self-sustaining living wage.

We believe that through our actions, Dallas County – which educates 10% of Texas and 1% of the nation– can be an inclusive and prosperous region where economic opportunity is shared equitably. That’s why our true north goal is that by 2040 at least half of all 25-34-year-old residents of Dallas County, irrespective of race, will be provided the opportunity to earn a self-sustaining living wage.

To increase living wage attainment, we must equitably increase educational success aligned with high-demand jobs, maximizing the cumulative impact from early education all the way to college, career, and/or military readiness and accessing and completing a strong postsecondary education.

Key benchmarks like pre-K enrollment, third-grade reading, eighth-grade math, college, career, and military readiness, and living wage attainment guide our work. Since Commit was founded in 2012, 62,114 Dallas County students are now achieving these critical markers. There has been an 11% increase in Pre-K enrollment, a 6% increase in third-grade reading proficiency, and a 5% increase in high school graduation rates over the past 10 years – all outpacing the state as a whole.

Moreover, we know the educational strategies necessary to increase each of these academic outcomes: universal access to high-quality early education, an effective educator in every classroom, an affordable pathway to a postsecondary credential, and evidence-based education policy at the state and local level.